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At'ar's Looking Glass
On the eastern side of Anauroch is a desolate and stony plain called At'ar's Looking Glass. Rumors are many and varied about who At'ar was, if he or she even existed, and why the plain is named after this enigmatic figure. Some believe that At'ar was a selfish wizard from Netheril who craved as much power as possible. According to one version of this story, At'ar tried to take on the phaerimm himself and wrest the secret of their life-draining magic from them. The result was the devastation called At'ar's Looking Glass. According to another story, At'ar was a diviner who could use the plain to scry faraway places, and that the plain was actually once a huge lake. At'ar's Portal Collection Those who believe the former story also report that At'ar was very interested in portals. He had the knowledge to make his own portals, but the costs were always high, and so he developed a way to steal the portals that others made. He would use his magic to appropriate portals that other wizards made. He did not really care where they went; he just wanted to have a great many portals that would take him everywhere in the world he wished to go. The sages who spread tales of At'ar's Portal Collection say that At'ar had a fortress in the mountainous Azirrhat. It was here that he would put all the portals that he stole from others, and the two he made himself. To guard them, so it is said, he planted a race of lizardlike humanoids called asabi (see Monsters of Faerûn) in the deep caverns underneath his portals, and the creatures would keep out all beings but himself. Some believe that the asabi were At'ar's downfall and that they slew him and took the whole complex for themselves. No one has ever found At'ar's fortress in the Azirrhat, so there is much doubt that he had one there. What is not in doubt is that a collection of portals is within the crevices and caverns of the Azirrhat. More careful sages call the collection the Azirrhat Portal Collection. No one has yet advanced a better explanation for the existence of so many portals in one place than the At'ar explanation, but many think there is another explanation. Reports on the location of the collection vary, since few have returned alive to tell of them. Usually adventurers reach the peaks of Azirrhat, since they are prepared for the dangers of the desert. Sages and the like more often meet their fates at the hands of asabi killers in the Looking Glass, or Zhentarim on the Black Road, or Bedine raiders. Lately, wizards from the city of Shade have been added to the list of dangers facing travelers in the area. Those who have reached the Azirrhat and found a way into the caverns reported wave after wave of asabi, and some have powerful magic. The survivors have been the lucky ones to find an open portal and slip through. The Azirrhat Portal Collection contains a great many portals -- more perhaps than even sages guess. They are set into arches in the cavern walls, or pool-like rings in the floor, or even in the middle of passages. All of the portals in the collection are roughly human-sized, and all were created either by wizards of Netheril or elves of the great elven kingdoms of the time. Many of them are two-way portals, but few have been used in recent years, so sages believe that they reach secluded or remote sites. Some of them are constantly open, while others require keys. If any clues to the natures, and keys, to these portals exist, they would be in the fabled and undiscovered fortress of At'ar. The wizards of the city of Shade knew of the Portal Collection before leaving for the Plane of Shadow, and some probably made records. It is most likely just a matter of time before the Shade wizards of that dread city find the Collection and begin to make use of it. Category:Locations in Anauroch